Loving Our Neighbor

Before I start this blog I shall give credit where credit is due. Much of my Christianity in the last 5 years has been positively influenced by John Eldredge. He opened my eyes to the spiritual battle that we live in on a daily basis and has shown me the reality of God wanting to speak into my everyday life. So, many of my blogs are my own applications of what I have learned and seen in my own personal life but many thoughts and ideas probably were planted while reading one of John's books: Waking the Dead, Captivating and/or Walking with God. Today's blog was seeded from Page 199 of Waking the Dead which talks about how the enemy uses us to reaffirm lies that he is speaking over other people's lives.

Satan is the Father of lies and the Bible tells us in Revelation 12:9-11 that Satan is our accuser and that he accuses us before the throne of God day and night. The Bible also tell us that Satan masquerades as "light." This lets us know that we are continually being accused before God and that Satan will be speaking lies about us to not only God, ourselves but also to others.

Do you have a person who whenever they walk in the room they immediately get under your skin? Or if you look at them all you can think and say is, "they will never change." History probably confirms this lie because you have watched them for years and they have never changed. But lets look at the "agreement" you have just made, "they will never change." Who is behind that agreement, God or Satan? Let's see: God is the healer of the brokenhearted, nothing is impossible for Him and he took Saul a murderer of Christians and turned him into Paul. So I think when we look at that person and make the agreement "they will never change" we are agreeing with their accuser Satan and not agreeing with God.

The understanding that Satan will try to influence our perceptions of others has been a huge revelation to me. I will admit there are people that irritate me. Having the understanding of who can be behind these feelings has helped me to fight the desire to make agreements about the individual and to ask God to give me love for them. I also have asked God to see what the enemy is trying to prevent by causing a break in our relationship. I have been at this for a few years now and the results have been astounding to say the least.

I can think of 3 people at least that really used to irritate me whenever they would come into the room. I have had to fight hard and long in order to learn to love them and see them through Christ's eyes. In retrospect I can see why the enemy was trying to keep us apart. All 3 of these people are very influential in my lives and I am influential in theirs. We have had to do great spiritual battle together. They are people who are very dear to my life and I can't imagine not loving them or having them a part of my life. The enemy was trying to keep us apart so that we would not be effective against him. So I've learned to get excited when someone "irritates me" because I begin to wonder why the enemy does not want us to connect.

So here is my challenge to you. Do not accept everything at face value. We are in a spiritual battle and the enemy does try to "secretively influence" us. If we take each other out by not loving our brothers and sisters Satan has less to do because we are doing his dirty work for him. One of the banners over my life is Ephesians 6, "Our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers of this dark world." Relationship trouble to me is an indication that the enemy is trying to cover up his dirty work. Make sure you are fighting the real source of the problem and don't make agreements with enemy about the people that are in your life.

Finally, "try to live at peace with everyone as much as it depends on you (Romans 12:18)." In every relationship there are three sides. You do your part and leave the rest up to them and God. I have realized that if I had given in to my feelings and emotions and not fought for the truth, God would not have been able to use me in these battles. To me this is one of thekeys of holiness. Not to be self-righteous and "perfect" but rather to remain a clean vessel for Him to use because you never know when you will be called to fight for freedom especially for those who used to irritate you!